


Common Acquaintances

by Budinca



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Cats as Judges of Character, Cohabitation, Friday Night Chips Venting, Friendship, Gen, Of All Flavours, Roommates, Takes Place From S3 to Post S4, Tea Practices, Unsuccessful Online Stalking, and The End of The World as We Know It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:13:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22335364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Budinca/pseuds/Budinca
Summary: “You must be Martin.”“Yeah. Has Melanie been talking about me?”“Oh, um… Jon used to go on about you a lot.”A series of instances of Georgie Barker hearing of, wondering about, and interacting with the entity commonly known as Martin Blackwood.
Relationships: Georgie Barker & Jonathan Sims, Georgie Barker & Martin Blackwood, Georgie Barker & Melanie King, Georgie Barker/Melanie King, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 48
Kudos: 639





	Common Acquaintances

1.

The first time Georgie heard the name was a couple weeks into their shared habitation, on a Saturday, when Jon was trying to make tea and seemingly deeming himself inadequate for the task.

Georgie, having given herself an ultimatum of not-doing-any-work-for-the-weekend, kept an eye on him in her open kitchen as she scrolled through the array of long-abandoned video games on her console with increasing franticness. 

She’d never been good at slacking off, even when she knew it was the healthy thing to do. She and Jon had this in common at least, which made his apparent lack of a clear occupation these days even stranger. (Then again, it wasn’t like they’d talked much over the past few years. _People change_ , she thought, without putting too much faith in it). 

Nevertheless. Georgie was growing steadily more impatient with her time off, and Jon kept pouring mugs of steeped tea down the sink. By the time he set the kettle to boil for the third time (granted, it was a one mug and a half size), she pushed herself off the couch and went to inspect.

Jon was frowning at the packet of tea he’d bought the day before, as if seeking instructions or imperfections.

“I never know how Martin makes it,” he muttered, although whether he was speaking to her or to himself was anyone’s guess.

“Who’s Martin?” Georgie asked, making him jump in surprise, so that answered that question.

Jon set the packet down with a grimace, straightened his mug on the coaster. “A colleague.”

Georgie waited, but he didn’t seem to notice it. “Ex-colleague, you mean?”

Jon grimaced a bit more. Or maybe that was just his face, nowadays. “Yeah, I suppose so, now.”

Georgie shrugged, leaned back against the counter and raised her eyebrows at the array of discarded tea bags beside her.

“Okay, so what about the process of steeping a tea bag is so daunting?” she asked, not to be condescending in any way. She was genuinely curious (and bored).

“It doesn’t taste the same,” Jon said, sounding a little bit like he was pulling the words out like teeth.

He picked up the steaming kettle and, with a downright hilarious amount of concentration, filled his mug anew. The bag filled with water and then floated to the surface, the water started turning brown. They both watched it like wildlife explorers for a few moments.

Then, when she deemed the silence had lasted enough, Georgie gave a verdict based on the visual proof.

“It’s tea.”

“That’s what I said, too,” Jon grumbled, stirring in milk and sugar.

Georgie considered telling him to try adding the milk beforehand next time, for variation’s sake. Still, it was tea. It smelled like tea. She wondered what it said about her that the most exciting thing happening on her weekend off was watching her ex brew tea in her kitchen.

Nonetheless, there was some amount of trepidation in her as she watched Jon take in a deep breath and raise the cup to his mouth. He took a sip, scowled, and looked towards the sink for a moment, before setting the mug down and dejectedly stepping away.

Georgie waited until he was out of sight before picking up the mug herself. It tasted like tea.

2.

Tea prowess or not, there were few things more alarming than waking up and seeing Jon attempt to prepare breakfast.

Georgie could tell it was supposed to be a joint affair (or merely something addressed to her) because there were at least two types of spreads set on the table. In all the years she’d known Jon, she had barely even seen him acknowledge that breakfast was something people had, much less seen him take part in said ritual for longer than the length it took him to pick an apple and return to his dark cave.

“Can you please take care so you don’t take your liver out with the butter knife?”

“That was nowhere near my liver,” Jon scowled.

“Not yet,” Georgie said, airily, peeking into a teapot. “But if you try any harder with that bread, I fear I might have to file a restriction order against you, on behalf of my cutlery.”

There was just an impatient sound from behind her, followed by a mutter of, “You sound like Martin.”

Georgie blinked. Twice now, in the month and a half Jon had been there, had Jon said that name. Well, thrice, actually, if not by name. She was pretty sure he’d said something about amateur poetry once, and that seemed to fit the image well enough.

She rearranged some of her worldly knowledge. In the language of Jonathan Sims, which, granted, she hadn’t spoken in a while, but she liked thinking she was at least a level B2 in, anything over one unprompted mention of the same person meant _connection_.

She got curious. “What did he do to you?”

She took a seat at the table and a buttered piece of toast from Jon’s hand.

“Hid all kitchenette knives and hovered around me every time I went to the canteen. Told me about the large usefulness of _bugs_ ,” he said, rolling his eyes and attempting to skewer another innocent slice of bread.

“Bugs?”

Jon shrugged. “He likes spiders.”

Georgie mentally noted this down too: ‘Jonathan Sims knows hobby of said ex-colleague’. _Jonathan Sims_ , Georgie mused, _might have a friend_.

Of course, that was mean of her to think. Of course he did. The fact that he came to her instead of one of his closer friends must have been intentional, given the circumstances (whatever these might have been). She hoped so, at least.

“That's sweet?” she tried. 

Jon groaned.

Georgie finished the piece of toast and dusted her hands. Gulped half a mug of perfectly decent tea before getting up.

“Don’t amputate yourself in my kitchen, Jon.”

“Will do,” he sighed.

3.

Georgie did not have the Admiral when she and Jon first met, but she guessed she must have been lucky, despite the rather dramatic way in which they’d broken things off. In the past few years, she’d adopted a rather strict rule of not dating anyone the Admiral didn’t like.

Acquaintances had said something about missed chances and personal preferences, but friends had nodded in approval. Georgie had not particularly cared about the former, and took the latter for granted.

Besides, it wasn’t like it had been a foolproof plan, a way to say the Admiral liked, and only liked, people he deemed worthy enough of Georgie’s time. He was as arbitrary as any other living being.

Case in point: the Admiral _loved_ Jonathan Sims. Jon kept claiming he didn’t, showcasing his scratched hands as proof, but Georgie knew her cat. Her cat had never sought the attention of another human being as quickly as it had Jon’s.

Except, perhaps, Melanie’s, but Georgie suspected that had been more a case of him being a little shit and _sensing_ she was slightly allergic.

As such, more often than not, she often found the Admiral lounging somewhere on or around Jon’s person whenever Jon wasn’t actively cleaning her house (something he did way more often than she ever would) or trying to cook (something she actively had no opinions on, in light of her own minimal prowess there).

He was spread over Jon’s chest now, as Jon lay down on the thick carpet of Georgie’s living room, while she looked through some history books she’d recently brought from the library. He was purring.

“I mean, it’s not like I never went anywhere. There were functions. They were… _fun_.”

“The way you said the word _fun_ like it was a virus really drove that point home,” Georgie said, not looking up from her book. Then she did. “Jon, seriously, tell me the last time you did something for fun, that was not related to your job.”

“You make it sound like the job was fun,” Jon said, blankly. His fingers sunk into the Admiral’s fur, who pushed his paws into Jon’s neck as a reward.

Georgie huffed. “You know what I mean. When’s the last time you went out somewhere?”

“A few days ago?”

“ _Not_ for groceries or… whatever weird cult business you’ve got going on. When’s the last time you went somewhere, with people, and not in a work setting?”

It took him a long time to answer. So long, in fact, that Georgie closed her book so she could more fully concentrate her attention on being _sad_.

“I had lunch with Martin a few times,” Jon said, uncertainty dripping off every word. He perked up when Georgie let out a forlorn sigh. “T-technically not a work setting! It was lunch break, and we were outside.”

“ _Fine_ ,” she said, slumped down in her armchair. “When was this?”

Another pause, pressing. “A… year ago?”

“Jon!”

“Sorry!” he yelped, sitting up and thus making the Admiral sink his claws deep in his sweatshirt. “I don’t know what you want me to say. I don’t—didn’t have time to go frolicking around every other day.”

Georgie snorted. “ _Frolicking_.”

“Shut up.”

It only made her laugh harder.

“Still,” she said, afterwards. “Promise me you’ll try? Don’t let yourself lose touch with just about everyone.”

Jon sighed. “Yes, alright.” He rolled his eyes, stood up while carefully cradling the Admiral to his chest. “I might even go out for another lunch.”

The dramatic stoicalness in that remark alone made Georgie snort again. “Well, thank God for _Martin._ ”

Jon chuckled. “Yeah…”

“Even though you won’t ask him how he makes his _tea_.”

4.

Melanie _was_ embarrassed about the job, which Georgie thought was perfectly reasonable. It was never a nice feeling to go from freelancing to a desk job, especially when said desk job happened to be something you’d very publicly and loudly derided for years. But they all did what they had to survive.

Georgie made sure she set aside a few minutes for Melanie to complain about it every time they hung out — which was more and more often, nowadays, in spite of said job. So there _were_ at least a few good things to come out of it.

They were a couple tonics in, on a Friday night, when Georgie deemed the mood light enough to bring it up — to spare Melanie the self-consciousness that came with doing it herself. Besides, she was curious. Jon was not so much a closed book as one left in the rain until the ink ran into a jumbled mess, but nevertheless hard to read when the talk came to this.

“So,” Georgie said, “how are things in eldritch paradise?”

Expectedly, Melanie groaned, running her hands down her face.

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” she said. “I’d almost managed to forget.”

“Sorry.”

“Sometimes I like to imagine I’m just sleeping, having a really jumbled, nonsensical, and somehow still _boring_ nightmare for five days a week, only to wake up at ten past five every Friday.”

Georgie grimaced. “I’d hoped familiarity would make it a bit more tolerable.”

“I mean,” Melanie sighed, took a sip. “It has? A bit? Read a few statements, hated my life afterwards, rearranged the whole office kitchenette when nobody was paying attention. Although I don’t know who would even care, it’s just the four of us there in that basement, and it’s not like we _talk_ to each other.”

Georgie dipped a chip in whatever sauce remained in the bowl between them and spoke between bites. “Why not? If it’s boring. When I had an office job, we would’ve done anything just to avoid working.”

“Assuming you had normal co-workers,” Melanie said. “I mean, Basira’s alright, but she’s always doing her own thing, reading all those books like she actually _wants_ to be there.”

Georgie frowned at the acidity behind that, but Melanie just went on.

“And I tried to talk to them, but it’s like tilting at windmills! Tim’s there on and off, and he _seems_ like he was a nice guy in another life, but now I feel like he’s always seconds away from breaking his keyboard in two, and I don’t want to be there for that. Then, there’s Martin, giving me the death stare whenever I pass by. Doesn’t really make you want to say hello, does it?”

Georgie blinked. The various pieces of her non-immediate world view ground together slightly.

“Why is Martin giving you the death stare?” she asked. “From what I heard from Jon, he’s nice.”

“Yeah, right,” Melanie snorted. “Maybe to him. Oh, but _yes_ , _about_ Jon. He asked me to look something up for him a few days ago—”

“He did?”

“—and I did the terrible mistake of actually asking Martin, you know, somebody who’s actually worked there longer than I have and knows where stuff is, well, I asked him where I could find something about this statement. And he asked why, and I told him, and I shit you not, the _look_ on his face, you’d think I committed a first-degree felony!”

“Ouch,” Georgie said, but more on autopilot.

“Granted, he did help me look, but I think those manila folders will never look the same after that,” Melanie continued, picked up a chip, and ate it. “So, yes, that’s that.”

“I didn’t know Jon asked you for research.”

“Yeah, well, it wasn’t that big of a deal,” Melanie said, although she was not quite subtly avoiding her eyes. “Plus, I was bored.”

Georgie frowned. “I thought you two couldn’t stand each other.”

“ _Very_ bored,” Melanie said, and stuffed the rest of the chips in her mouth, looking determinedly away.

So Georgie sighed. It wasn’t her place to pry. Although, if more strange packages ended up at her house, it might be.

5.

It so happened that knowing what was going on didn’t make anything significantly easier. But still, Georgie was glad to be in the loop now. It had given her enough ammunition to bully Melanie into going forth with her decision to get therapy, to begin with.

It made her less likely to be rebuffed when she cornered Jon (i.e. blocked his way to his room) after coming home one evening, and saying, “Did you talk to him?”

Jon grimaced, as he was wont to do. “Yes.”

“For real, this time? Like, you know, real people, with thoughts and meanings behind the words they said?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Jon groaned.

“Great!” Georgie beamed. “Then help me make dinner.”

“I actually—” Jon began.

“What, drained all your people skills for the day? Come on, Jon, think of it as exposure therapy, if talking to your friends isn’t enough,” she said. “Plus, I need someone to watch the pan as I chop everything.”

Jon still grumbled about not being allowed near knives (Georgie thought he ought to be thankful she allowed him in the kitchen at all after managing to get half the skin on his hand burnt off), but acquiesced. It didn’t even take much to get him to catch her up on whatever had been going on at the Institute, aside from what she already knew from Melanie, so she guessed that counted as progress.

“You won’t like this, but,” Georgie started, and heard him take a preparatory, deep breath, “I still think you all should focus more on finding a way to leave than on whatever this ritual is.”

“If only it was that simple,” Jon said.

Georgie did _not_ like that detached condescension in his tone. She turned around.

“Listen, Jon,” she said. “Just because you _think_ you’re the only one who can do one thing doesn’t mean it’s your job to do it. It’s still your own life, you don’t have to martyr yourself just because you’re scared of letting other people help.”

“It’s not like that, I can’t just—”

“Yes, you _can_ just. Or, well, maybe you can’t, but you could try harder to solve your own problems rather than the world’s.”

“Georgie…”

“The onion’s burning.”

He rounded back to the cooker. “Shit.”

“It’s fine, I’ll chop another.”

She did, while Jon carefully washed the pan, and the prolonged silence seemed to have the very rare effect of actually calming both of them down. Georgie deflated. Jon sighed.

“Fine,” she said, carefully adding the new onion in the pan, “then tell me about Martin. Is he still sore about Melanie?”

Jon looked confused. “What about Melanie?”

“Nevermind,” she shook her head. “How was he?”

“Good?” Jon said. “I think?”

Georgie stared at him. “You didn’t ask?”

“Of course I _asked_ ,” Jon said. “I’m just not sure he’d actually _tell_ me if he wasn’t.”

“Well, you two’ve got that in common.”

“I guess,” he said, and it was unclear whether he was aware of how petulant he sounded. “Oh, but… I told him about you, given the circumstances and all that.”

Georgie came to attention. “Really.”

“Yeah,” Jon went on, idly turning the onion around the pan. “He said he’d listened to your podcast. He liked the one with the Loch Lomond inn.”

“Right.”

Georgie found herself wondering whether she’d had any obvious oversights in that one. Then she turned the coin on the other side and wondered if she ought to take it as a compliment. The two hazy versions of Martin she had in her brain never not quite managed to merge.

It stuck with her.

Georgie supposed she couldn’t help being a public figure. She had, after all, done her damned best to build a reputation, an audience, a place to pour content that people would appreciate and thus make her work worthwhile. It couldn’t be helped that so many things about her own person were, consequently, public domain.

What she _could_ resent, however, was how hard Martin Blackwood was to find on the whole wide web. She looked, and looked, first giving herself the impression she did so out of some mild kind of curiosity, then getting steadily more irked when all her searches brought her nothing.

It seemed to her only fair that if he could so easily access her and her life’s work (put there for the public, with paid promotions and a very accessible website), she ought to at least find a private social network profile with his name on it.

None of the matches seemed to scream _Martin Blackwood_ to her, however — unless in the time since Jon had left the Institute he’d built a bodybuilding career or aged by twenty years. So, in the end, empty-handed and rather shamefaced, Georgie closed all the latest tabs on her computer.

And methodically erased her web history.

6.

As it turned out, Georgie did not like Martin Blackwood.

When he first approached her, before she noticed the greyish tint to his skin, the bruised bags under his eyes and the walls above them, she found herself actually recognising him. She’d thought, _Ah, so this is Martin_.

Martin, who made Jon tea and made sure he ate enough. Martin, who wrote poetry that Georgie still couldn’t believe Jon had taken the time to read, _years_ ago. Martin, who liked spiders and work functions, although they made him nervous every time.

Then Jon had nestled in on their conversation, and Martin had asked _Why not?,_ and Georgie bristled, and he grew colder, and she thought, _Ah, so this is Martin Blackwood_.

Georgie did not like having weights added on her shoulders by any other hands than her own. She’d done her best with Jon, inasmuch as he let himself be helped, and stepped away when it was clear he didn’t, or couldn’t, or both. She had her own life, and it was no one’s place but hers to say how and on whom she spent it.

So she did not like Martin Blackwood, with his cold stare and unsaid accusations and holier-than-thou attitude. _You don’t even know me_ , she’d wanted to say. And, _Just because you care about someone doesn’t mean they’re worth more than everybody else_. And, _If you care about him that much, then why aren’t you the one doing all this?_

But she hadn’t. Because, despite everything, Georgie Barker was not a cruel person. She tried not to be. She hoped she wasn’t.

It was just that her life was her own. And although she still cared about Jon, enough to hope there was still a way back or out for him, enough to worry, constantly, at the back of her mind, there were more important things going on _for her_ right now. She could only care so much for so many people at once without breaking herself into pieces, and she’d made her choice.

It wasn’t about being _worth_ saving. Nobody was, but she didn’t hold that one against Martin, not when she’d seen the way his heart broke like ice in his eyes even as he talked to her. Pain and anger often spilled out the sharpest words, but not often truest. It wasn’t about worth.

It was just about choice.

7.

The world, tragically, ended. Then it went on.

Georgie guessed it would have been asking for too much order of something that was in essence pure chaos, to ask that the end of the world would also equal the immediate end of all life. Therefore, she decided that the best thing they could do was going on along with it. Ride the end of times until — well, the end.

Melanie spoke to Basira. She worried, remotely, about Daisy, but Georgie wasn’t quite sure if it was a worry about her wellbeing or their own. Both, she supposed. It was the go-to emotion, these days.

Basira came over, when she could. They dodged fears and changed houses, with it becoming clearer and clearer that, really, there was hardly any point in hiding, when the very air stared at you from all angles. Georgie started dreaming of poking sticks into unblinking eyes the size of windowpanes.

It was in another of Daisy’s safehouses, halfway across the country, when Basira left, and Melanie told Georgie, “We should call Jon.”

Reception was intermittent, but, oddly, still there. Georgie guessed they ought to thank some phone-wielding fear for that. There were strings of numbers being counted every time she raised a phone to her ear, no matter if she dialled it or not. They did not stop even if she did, even if the other person picked up.

Jon, as it turned out, wasn’t all that far away. Just a few train stops to the north, if trains still worked, which they sometimes did. And sometimes they just appeared to work.

Georgie gave him directions in pitch dark, as if fearing the eye in the sky would read her lips otherwise. Sometimes, detail-oriented logic helped the mind more than it did the situation.

“And cover your eyes maybe, on the way here,” she said, as a form of goodbye, and let the staticky voice go on saying numbers on its own. 

She had no idea if he would come.

When the rapping came at their door several days later, Melanie was already armed, and Georgie had already picked up their eternal bag of supplies in response to the steps outside, but the Admiral simply jumped out the broken window.

“Georgie! Oh… hello to you too,” Jon’s voice echoed outside, and they both let out a half-relieved sigh.

“Don’t let the Admiral go too far,” she called, as she started unlocking the door.

“No, he’s… alright, yes,” Jon said. Georgie opened the door and saw him peeking at her from under his blindfold. “Hello, Georgie. Melanie.”

There was a sheepish clatter of a knife set back on a table from behind her, but Georgie just frowned and looked Jon up and down, then down again.

“Where’s the Admiral?”

“Oh,” Jon said, and he turned to look over his shoulder. “With Martin, I suppose.”

Georgie looked along with him, and, true enough, saw Martin Blackwood a few paces away, being circled by the rather dusty bulk of the Admiral, again and again, basically prohibiting any further step.

Georgie almost called out to him, but then Martin crouched down and ran his hands over the Admiral’s back until he stopped in place. At which point, with utmost care and what looked like reverence, Martin picked him up and settled him against his chest.

“He’s _so_ big,” Martin said, approaching them with his arms full of cat and a wide grin on his face. “Hi, Georgie.”

“Hi, Martin,” Georgie found herself grinning back.

And when she glanced aside at Jon, she saw him, blindfold pushed up into his hair, wearing one of the gentlest smiles she’d ever seen on him. So there was that.

They locked the door again and checked their surroundings from all angles of the house. Then, when nothing catastrophic immediately happened, they all sat down. And caught up with the catastrophic somethings that _had_ happened.

Everyone in the house made at least one attempt at extricating the Admiral from Martin’s person, but all that did was make him hold even more sharply to every bit of Martin it could sink its claws in, so in the end they had to admit defeat. Martin said he didn’t mind.

Jon went as far as trying to pry his claws one by one, and got a mouthful of teeth fixed in his wrist for it, at which, upon hearing his yelp, Melanie expressed her theatrically heightened worry of Jon being contagious.

“It’s fine, Jon,” Martin said, and smiled.

And Georgie was able to watch, in real life and time, as Jonathan Sims melted a bit. This was really not something she’d expected to see either before or after the end of the world. _People change_ , she thought, believing it a bit more now.

On the same note, as the day passed, Georgie found herself thinking that the end of times actually befit Martin. In a completely not creepy or resentful way. 

It was true, he looked as horrified and nightmare-ridden as all of them (except Georgie, whose dreams had taken more and more gory outlooks regarding sky-enucleation), but at least he seemed more _there_. Not the walled-up and remote version she’d met at the Institute.

She guessed this, here, was the closest she would ever come to seeing Martin Blackwood as he’d been before, in all those snippets and recollections Jon had shared with her, sometimes without even noticing they rotated around the same, dwindling circle of people. He was, she realised, not quite what she’d expected.

That wasn’t a bad thing.

Georgie sidled up to him after a while, making a half-hearted attempt at prying the Admiral out of his arms, before looking up at him. His eyebrows pulled in a worried frown so deep that she almost snorted, but she managed to keep her stare sombre.

“So, Martin,” Georgie said, seriously, and watched him subtly lean away from her. “How do you _actually_ make your tea?”

It took a beat. Then Martin laughed, loudly enough that the Admiral woke and slunk out of his arms.

“That’s the first thing Jon asked me too when we left,” he said. “I’ll show you. If you have a kettle?”

Georgie grinned. “Follow me.”


End file.
